Tuesday’s Workwear Report: Fresh Squeeze Popover Blouse

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A woman wearing a multicolored print top and dark blue jeans

Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.

I can’t get over how cute the print on this Nic + Zoe blouse is. If you’re looking for a quick dose of color to brighten up the winter blahs, this orange pattern should do the trick. The band collar will go nicely under any blazer, and the slight stretch in the fabric will make it super comfortable. Plus, it’s machine washable, so you’ve got one fewer trip to the dry cleaner.

The top is $158 at Nordstrom in sizes XS–XXL (plus sizes have sold out); it's available in plus sizes 1X–3X, regular sizes XS–XXL, and petite sizes PS–PL at Nic + Zoe.

Sales of note for 2/7/25:

  • Nordstrom – Winter Sale, up to 60% off! 7850 new markdowns for women
  • Ann Taylor – Extra 25% off your $175+ purchase — and $30 of full-price pants and denim
  • Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything + extra 15% off
  • Boden – 15% off new season styles
  • Eloquii – 60% off 100s of styles
  • J.Crew – Extra 50% off all sale styles
  • J.Crew Factory – 40% off everything including new arrivals + extra 20% off $125+
  • Rothy's – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
  • Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
  • Talbots – 40% off one item + free shipping on $150+

463 Comments

  1. This is so cute and happy and I can’t think of a lot of places it wouldn’t go.

    1. It is lovely! I’d definitely wear it! I’m wearing a long checked skirt today and can’t figure out if I look cute or like a sister-wife?

    2. This looks like what someone would wear to a pink ghetto job along with cheap polyester pants.

      1. Totally disagree! I’d wear this to my law job without hesitation. Probably with nice wool pants or a wool skirt.

        1. Not the woman who said it, so she can tell me if I’m wrong (and I have a feeling that she will). There are “pink collar” jobs – traditionally done almost entirely by women, such as elementary school teacher, receptionist, etc. I assume “pink ghetto” is a reference to this, perhaps with an added layer of “the type of job that does not lend itself to any sort of promotion.” So it’s not like going from say compliance to a director of compliance; it’s that job forever and always.

          1. I just Googled it and here’s what came up: The term “pink-collar ghetto” means that many women are stuck in certain jobs, mostly low-paying jobs, and usually because of their sex. “Ghetto” is used figuratively to evoke an area where people are marginalized, often for economic and social reasons. “Pink-collar” denotes jobs historically held only by women (maid, secretary, waitress, etc.)”

        2. I’m used to “pink collar” and “pink police” but “pink ghetto” is new to me!

      2. It needs to be styled with jewelry and a third piece. The problem with the outfit is a blouse that isn’t silk (or very structured, eg The Fold), no jewelry, basic hair, jeans. The blouse itself is versatile.

          1. The third piece is not outdated. It’s classic. That’s ridiculous. It’s been around for centuries and I don’t think Gen Z fashion senses are going to change it.

      3. I actually agree on the aesthetic judgment and think the comment it is kind of funny.
        Which probably means I am too mean for this board too:-)

      4. I’m pretty sure my 5th grade teacher in the late 80s wore this shirt with polyester pants.

    3. As a plus size woman I shudder at blouses like this. I like how you all can see it as a fresh and cute print, but they’ve been trying to put us in boldly printed sacks for decades, and that’s all I can see. I’m just done.

      1. yeah, this is very “spilled coffee on me so I swung into the dress barn on wall street and grabbed this” to me. Not cute.

        1. Haha I have literally been to that dress barn in similar circumstances, and I live in California!

        2. As a plus-size person, it’s absolutely this. It’s very Dress Barn, circa maybe 1998. Back then I struggled so much just finding plain tops for work that didn’t have loud prints, ruffles, doodads sewed to them, big patch pockets on the chest, etc. for work. I now hang on to my nice-quality, simple, understated pieces because I am afraid the day will come again when there’s nothing in stores but stuff that looks like they ripped off the print from a rejected wrapping-paper design.

        1. Right. I’m just saying as a plus size woman this is basically all we get, and I’m over it.

          You straight sizers can enjoy the hell out of it!

  2. Screaming into the void here b/c I can’t do so IRL. I have helped lead a kid activity that is descending into girl drama at the kid level (but fueled by some of the parents). My kids are in this activity and it was our only activity during COVID. I don’t have the authority to kick out problematic kids (or parents) and don’t want to peace out for the sake of my own kids. [It’s almost like that old show 24, where there are moles and double-crossing, a lot of lying and rumors, and kids gunning for team captains and middle schoolers really concerned about their “resumes” — dude-ette, no one cares about what you did in middle school.] I am about to just give myself a sabatical and am secretly grateful that one kid’s confirmation classes get in the way sometimes. Serenity now. SERENITY NOW!

    1. I’m assuming this is Girl Scouts or a girl BSA troop and the drama is about who is a patrol leader. Do your kids really want to continue? I have observed that by middle school a lot of troop leaders’ kids are not into it anymore and are just going along because their parents are really invested. If the kids aren’t having fun anymore it’s just not worth your time and effort. I also think the Gold Award/Eagle Scout thing is an overrated box-ticking exercise. I’ve seen a number of Gold Award and Eagle Scout projects. There is usually not a lot of substance to them, and the parents are doing more of the organizing and planning than the kids. Unless they can come up with and execute a really great project, they’ll learn more from a part-time job.

      1. When I was in law school (end of 2L year), a guy was running for a board position on my journal and mentioned multiple times that he was an Eagle Scout. It was pretty funny.

        1. That credential is mentioned when men are appointed as appellate judge 30 years later in these parts. I just always think “striver” and “box checker.”

          1. I view badge-collector as an epithet. That said, I think that BSA does a great job with things like first aid, cooking (for food safety, not top chef), and very important things (how not to die while hiking, something the DM sadly features a lot lately it seems). The spirit of the thing, to help others with a cheerful heart and to be a good citizen, is lost on a lot of kids (and probably twice as many parents). If I had an Eagle Scout, I’d be proud of him. But I am also very proud of my First-Class Scout and if he never goes beyond that, that is fine. He has learned a lot if important things at this point, had some good adventures, had some things be not so great, and had some good exposure to volunteering at different organizations in our community. I wasn’t a Girl Scout for very long, but can still remember how some very kind grownups made me feel.

        2. This is how I feel about Duke of Edinburgh in the UK. Especially since the schools that support it are the better resourced schools.

        1. I feel like every Eagle Scout I know built wooden paths or bridges in a park somewhere, and also every park I know has paths and bridges with placards saying whose Eagle Scout project this was.

          I’m okay with this trend continuing!

        2. You should read about the special Boy Scouts troops for the LDS church. They’re like an Eagle Scout factory.

    2. Sounds awful! Hopefully your kids will learn some valuable lessons about staying out of the drama.

    3. My daughter was in Girl Scouts very briefly in elementary school and she was the odd one out because I wasn’t a stay at home mom. They’d have events like a ski trip where the lodgings were a condo one of the girls’ families owned that wasn’t big enough for all the girls, so just the daughter of the troop leader and her besties were invited. They came back with a bunch of new badges or whatever the GS equivalent to merit badges are, and the girls who weren’t invited had nothing.

      The daughter of the troop leader became this giant queen bee and it extended past Girl Scouts, and the mom watched proudly as it was happening.

      I still hate that troop leader mom!

        1. Oh, that really grinds my gears. I’m so sorry. Our troop has its faults but we’d never pull crap like that.

      1. GS drama was a feature during DD’s elementary school years as well. The leader was a working mom with a local business who refused to accept any assistance because she wanted top billing. There were no weekend events or trips because she had to run her business. There were a couple of charities that the leader was involved with and the GS were a form of cheap labor for those charities and the leader got all the glory. There was no camping, no trips, and very little badge work. I had a great experience as a GS and when I offered to help, I was quickly shut down. I also found out that there is basic training (first aid, etc.) that the leaders are required to have and the leader had let her’s lapse and/or never even took the training, so the local council wouldn’t let her participate in the GS camps or take the girls on trips. We ended up switching GS troops.

    4. Solidarity! I’m a Girl Scout troop leader and there are a couple of parents that just push every button I have. When they are done, the bureaucracy steps in with something unreasonable that must be completed yesterday. We’re in a fairly good place right now, but something will come up.

    5. Sounds like a middle school Girl Scout troop? My mom was our troop leader, and we had a really nice troop in elementary school, but everything started going off the rails in middle school. My mom told us the troop would be whatever we wanted to be, which meant that we stopped earning badges and instead mostly went camping and did social events for group meetings. Several girls in the troop are still good friends– however, that group of girls also became very cliquey within the troop. Like they would always ride in the same van, etc. Some of the girls were also very mean to me and left me out of conversations because my mom was the troop leader. (Like they thought if they told me something, they would tell me mom.) Really typical middle school girl stuff…

      1. We were really limited in terms in grades 6-8 about what we could do as a troop during COVID and honestly, I’m not sad about skipping some of the middle school drama. Middle school girls can be absolutely vicious, even the worst of my high school mean-girl experiences paled in comparison to some of the middle school nastiness I endured.

  3. I am trying to remember the name of a book I read a few years ago. I have few details, but I know it centered around a low-income apartment complex and they kept having mysterious deliveries of cheese. There was a church and I think one of the main characters was a deacon. I think it must have been written by a Black author. Help! This has been bugging me and Google is no help.

    1. A few others have contributed the name and author. I’ll just say that it’s one of the best books I read last year. I laughed and cried and everything in between. The audiobook was also fantastic.

      1. OP here – I loved it too. I’ve tried to recommend it a few times this year and the name has escaped me!

        1. It’s making me giggle to imagine you trying to recommend this to folks without the name of it. “It’s great! There’s mystery cheese and all these people with funny names, but there’s also a church and a little statute…”

          1. I walked into a bookshop once with 5 facts about a book. The bookseller groaned but got it in 4.

          2. I assume you meant “statue” and I have to laugh because, as a lawyer, I struggle SO HARD with this, both in writing and when I’m speaking, so it is a relief to see it is not just me. On the rare occasion I am talking about a sculpture and not a law, I literally tell myself in my head “statue, statue, statue”!

    2. Now that the title is there, I must say…this book sounds great – adding to my goodreads :)

    3. BTW on the topic of slightly surreal NYC novels by African American authors, I just finished The Survivalists by Kashana Cauley and I loved it even though it did literally give me nightmares about my brief time in Big Law

  4. I am hosting a cornhole tournament to raise funds for our public school. What should the prizes be? We gave away cornhole boards last year but I’m afraid that has to be the right family to appreciate that. Gift cards? Tacky trophies? Other ideas?

    1. No tacky trophies. I’d do like Baskin Robbins giftcards, etc. Things that people will use.

    2. Get local businesses to donate gift cards as prizes. Do not spend the money you raised on prizes.

      1. +1 this is good for the local businesses (exposure) and you since you don’t have to spend profits. Businesses are very used to getting asked for this type of thing, don’t worry about it being a random request.

    3. Since it’s a fundraiser, I’d just go with the glory of it all and skip prizes unless someone donates something.

      1. Well, it is a fundraiser people bought tickets to and I am paying for all of the expenses, so no extra money is raised by cutting costs.

        1. I think bragging rights suffice in this case. If it’s going to be an annual fundraiser, can the winner add their name to a list of champs somewhere?

        2. I would still skip the prizes. Especially “tacky trophies.” They sound like they would just go right in the trash.
          Why are you personally sponsoring a fundraiser for your public school?

          1. This is common at both the public schools we’ve gone to. A group of parents personally sponsor (re: pay for) some sort of party or event, other parents buy tickets to attend, then all the ticket ticket money goes to the school. Obviously hopefully the tickets are more than the party cost or clearly the sponsors should have just given the money to the school instead of hosting a party. Sometimes the hosts have some sort of personal tie to a service or entertainer or something they can leverage to make costs reasonable but outcomes fun.

          2. To me, tacky trophies are worse than nothing – I have to find a place to store them and then feel like the jerk for throwing them out. Maybe I’m weird, but at this point, I have a viscerally negative reaction to crap. Producing and disposing of crap is terrible for the environment. I’ve literally had family members tell me to get a bigger space so they can give me the stuff they have bought but don’t want. Lady, that’s what the trash is for – I’m not going to add four or five figures to my housing budget to make you feel better about your TJ Maxx obsession.

    4. Can you support a local business in some way? Tickets to local movie theater/theater, membership to a local zoo, gift basket/chocolate from local shop, etc.

    5. some crazy ideas running with the corn theme:
      corn plushie (actually i’d kinda like this one)
      tix to shucked the musical
      some sort of outrageous corn cob holders
      tix for a cornfield maze or wagon ride or similar if that’s available in your area
      a gift basket full of canned corn

          1. I love the idea of the kids drawing trophies or winner certificates, and that along with some fancy popcorn would absolutely make my day.

            My kids are in college now, but three of the pieces of art we have hanging in our house were from the fund raiser “art auction” at my kids’ school. And they’re not even things my own kids did. I just objectively love them. (Think abstract art)

    6. I would do the classic double-dip here and ask local businesses to donate the prizes. Dinner at a local restaurant is a good one.
      If that’s not possible, a big showy basket with consumables is always nice – sitting on your table it’s like a trophy combined with a prize.
      Classics baskets: movie basket (popcorn tins and other snacks + gift card for streaming service), or beach basket (a cooler, snacks, couple beach towels and a game like giant jenga or a ball game), or a food-theme meal like Breakfast in a basket (coffee and tea, gift card for bagel place, muffins, pancake mix)

    7. One of those massive popcorn tins from The Popcorn Factory. You can personalize them too, so you could put something like “(Pop)corn Hole Champion, 2023” and the name of the school. Have fun with it!

    8. For all those suggesting local business donations, which I don’t think OP sounds into anyway, I would tread lightly here. We do parties like this but we also do a big fundraising gala where a lot of things get donated for an auction, and I’m not sure but I could see it being frowned upon going around and using up our school’s goodwill to get donations for something like this that might negatively affect donations to the gala.

    9. Things made by the kids are always popular. I have a throw pillow in my office which was decorated by my kids’ fourth grade class and I will never let it go (each kid made a felt flower and a PTA parent sewed the flowers onto a plain throw pillow).

    10. Paint (or otherwise inscribe) the name of the winner and the year every tournament on the cornhold board you use. It will become the trophy.

  5. I’m about to go to Paris for the first time in 5 years, staying in the Marais. I’d love any suggestions for restaurants or interesting activities beyond the basic tourist must-dos. I’m a New Yorker and will be there with my bf and my favorite things to do are wander quirky neighborhoods to look at architecture, shop, etc., and eat interesting things.

    1. I’d get in touch with the Wit and Whimsy blogger who has the Paris Perfected business for some specific recommendations.

    2. Highly recommend the book Paris: A Curious Traveler’s Guide by Eleanor Aldridge. Some things are slightly out of date since it was published pre-pandemic, but she has tons of recommendations for specific stores and restaurants to check out. Bonus– it’s available through the NY Public Library app Simply E.

      Not sure if this is a super obvious suggestion, but my favorite store in the Marais was Merci. They had sooo much great household stuff, and the store is absolutely massive. My Parisian friend said that there’s a lot of great Japanese food too, but I don’t recall any specifics.

      1. We’re going soon and I’m super interested in shopping at a big French department store. The one I loved 20 years ago is probably too upscale for my current purposes (Bon Marche) so I poking around trying to figure out where to go.

        1. Galeries Lafayette Haussmann and Printemps, if you haven’t been before! They are right next to each other and Galeries Lafayette has a rooftop cafe with a view of the Eiffel Tower. They were above my usual price point but there was also some more affordable brands. The buildings are so beautiful it’s worth going just to gawk (you won’t be the only one).

    3. I went to Paris last year and stayed in Vincennes. It’s just a couple of stops out of central Paris on the RER but is a really interesting neighbourhood – lovely boutique shops, a chateau, a beautiful park and lots of places to eat. I’ve been to Paris several times and can’t believe I didn’t know about this beautiful part of the city before. A great place to visit if you’re looking to do things beyond the usual tourist sights https://francetoday.com/travel/travel-features/a-day-in-vincennes-at-the-eastern-edge-of-paris/

      For restaurants, I’d suggest Benoit Brasserie in the Marais (book in advance). It’s the only traditional brasserie of this style in Paris to have a Michelin star. The Armagnac savarin pudding is divine. https://www.benoit-paris.com/en/

      Hugo & Co in the Latin Quarter is also excellent – contemporary and chic, and the food is delicious.
      https://www.tomygousset.com/hugo-and-co/

      1. Yes, this. Also, I like Café Méricourt and Holybelly for brunch (warning that the French aren’t big breakfast/brunch people so elsewhere you generally just get a coffee and a croissant). My Jewish Canadian husband said L’As du Falafel was the best Falafel he had ever had. Miznon is good too. I like Musée Carnavalet and recommend the coffee and pastries at Institut Suedois, they have a cute hidden courtyard. Also Cafe Coutume for coffee. We had a fun date night at le Balzar (not in the marais). The BHV has a fun shopping selection.

        1. I second the recommendation to have L’As du Falafel in the Marais. I was in Paris with my husband for our 20th anniversary recently and we went there several times! It is hands down was the best Falafel ever and worth the wait in line.

    4. Here is the email I got from my friend who lives in Paris. We did most of his suggestions and they were great:

      “The Marais. See old Paris at the Musée Carnavalet then walk over to Rue Bretagne, an elegant street lined with cool cafes and bars. Great for people watching. Have lunch at Le Marché des Enfants Rouge.

      “Foundation Louis Vuitton. On the edge of the Bois de Boulogne. A dazzling new museum with superb modern art exhibits.

      “Marché aux Puces. World famous flea market on the north side of the city. A bit of a scene on Sundays.

      “Bon Marché. The original department store on the Left Bank. Where Parisians shop. Outstanding wine cellar and epicerie.

      “The Eiffel Tower from a distance. Pretend you’re in a movie. Take a stroll down Le Isle de les Cygnes, cross the Bir-Hakeim Bridge and head toward the Place du Trocadero. Another wonderful place to enjoy a leisurely meal and watch the world go by.”

      We also had a great dinner here: https://lesantiquaires.net/

  6. How do you cover an elastic waist of a wide leg pant? The thread yesterday about non-leggings pants for work from home got me thinking, it seems like a lot of times the giveaway with these kinds of pants is the waistband. With leggings or skinny pants it was easy to cover an elastic waistband with an untucked blouse, but that can look kind of sloppy to me with a wider leg pant and tucking just feels funny and doesn’t conceal an elastic waistband as well. Am I overthinking this?

    1. If the front elastic is flat, do a half tuck.

      If the whole waist is shirred elastic or similar, do a tuck with a wide overhang.

    2. YMMV but I’m fully embracing visible elastic waists. Full-circle tuck. I did this even in previous, less-casual roles.

    3. That’s why crop tops are trending. You wear a top that ends at the waist, which you wear untucked. If you’re worried about flashing belly wear a bodysuit or long cami tucked in under the cropped top.

  7. I posted yesterday about my boss (who I’ve shared here is…nit picky at best, mean at worst – comments like) relaying to me that there will be changes to my role given an upcoming restructure. She didn’t mention that it would be a promotion or anything of the sort, just that I’d be moved and my portfolio would be changed. No idea if this is a demotion or a reclassification, or a pure change. She also has an upcoming meeting where she will learn more, as nothing has been set yet.

    I was already feeling a bit like her punching bag – and thus have drawn strict work boundaries which has been very helpful – but this just completely deflated me. I yelled at my kids last night, cried to DH, and woke up blue (and was short with my kids again).

    I won’t know more for a week or so. How do I keep my sanity and build my confidence until then? I browsed a bit on LinkedIn this morning and was chuffed to see there are some exciting roles out there for my skill set, which was helpful.

    1. Start applying now. If you’re at the point of yelling at your family because of work stress this is NOT a healthy job and I’d try to get out or at the very least mentally detach from her/your workplace (I don’t love ask a manager but she does have some good articles on how to do this).

    2. *comments like – Her: Were you nervous in that meeting?, Me: No, Her: Oh, well you were saying “Um” a lot when you were speaking, Me: Oh, thanks for the feedback – I have a cold and was trying not to sniffle or cough, Her: Well you know it can be distracting. I just want you to know so that you can be the best you can be. I know it may seem silly coming from me because I’m not the best speaker and you are so strong at this.

      1. Ohhh haha I see you work for my former boss. Start applying for jobs now. This is a her problem and you can’t fix it.

          1. Truly, no. I see no red flags in that conversation. What’s concerning about it to you?

          2. Not anon above, but no this seems like pretty normal feedback to me. I feel like we have lost the art of accepting any sort of constructive feedback

        1. Agree. I think OP is at the BEC stage with her boss, but if she had a great relationship with her boss, this would be excellent coaching.

          1. this is not constructive feedback and the manager needs to be clearer and kinder. It is condescending, silly, and not worth the drawback. If I managed my team and said stuff like that I would be failing at managing. If you think this is good management, you also need some training.

          2. How is it not constructive. Her boss is accurately telling her that saying um a lot is distracting (and it is, this is standard speaking advice) and then praised her for being a strong speaker.

            In a vacuum, there is nothing objectionable about this. I just think OP is fed up and reacts to everything her boss says negatively at this point (which is why I said BEC) and to me it’s obvious that OP should be looking for another job.

            Being Over It is a good enough reason to switch jobs.

        2. Eh – this example was more neutral. It’s also things like correcting my grammar on work chat, snide remarks about other team members (and we have a very high performing team), etc. I have a direct report that has taken 1-2 days off every month due to sick kids and boss was like “I bet she’s out of PTO. She may need to take leave. I’m sympathetic but I have to think about shareholder value” (direct report has plentiful PTO).

          1. Again, throwing out the comment about shareholder value, it’s pretty typical to monitor overuse of sick days. At every company I have ever worked for.

    3. Couldn’t the change be good? Couldn’t it take you out of her orbit? Don’t take it out on your family; polish your resume.

    4. You’re feeling like her punching bag, yet you’re yelling at your kids in response to being stressed by a change which could be great. So now you’re making your kids your punching bag. You’re making a huge deal out of something that could be totally minor.

    5. Start applying now. My experience has been that when you’re out of the communication loop and excluded from having a voice in your role that it isn’t too much longer that you find yourself in a nowhere role or being downsized. Get out now before your spirit is more broken.

    6. Thank you all. No, my kids do NOT deserve that, and I do want to be better today. It isn’t a “normal” thing for me, but was a result of getting this type of news yesterday.

      I guess I’m just…trying to see what I did wrong. I’ve worked super hard, learned a ton, and while it seems like my boss has her own issues, I’m wondering why I was never good enough.

      I should also say, for the first 2 years of this job (also first 2 pandemic years) I was also going through a very rough time personally – like some of the worst in my life (marriage problems, pregnancy, death of a beloved parent) and I did my best. I’ve talked this through with my therapist because I’ve had a lot of guilt about it.

      And of course it’s my fault but I have not updated my resume since starting this job (~3.5 years) so have a lot of work to do!

      1. “I’ve worked super hard, learned a ton, and while it seems like my boss has her own issues, I’m wondering why I was never good enough.”

        Okay, your manager might stink but – and I do mean this kindly – this is a self-defeating victim mentality that you really need to kick. You might be way over-personalizing what is really happening here. Sometimes people and jobs are not a fit and you do not have to spiral into wondering where you failed. Move on and also figure out what personal work you need to do to be more confident and depersonalize work stuff.

      2. Some (most?) managers get a first expression of an employee, and there is just nothing you can do to change it. If you were just an ok employee for your first two years (which is totally understandable given everything you had going on), I would assume that’s how she is always going to view you

      3. From everything I’ve read that you’ve written, your manager is managing you, you admit you’ve been mediocre due to life circumstances, but you’re mad at your manager about it. You can be mad that life handed you these challenges, but your manager does not sound like the demon you’re making her out to be.

        In your shoes, I’d be looking to change jobs for a fresh start, and I would work on yourself through therapy.

      4. This is all super helpful framing. Thank you all for taking the time to comment (here and above thread)!

  8. I feel really silly asking this question, but here goes. How do you sort and store your kitchen linens? Our towels and napkin situation is out of control! Our daily use cloth napkins are mixed in with cleaning towels and hand towels and its a giant mess. No one hesitates to use a regular dinner napkin to wipe off the counter at the end of the night. I would love to start over and have separate napkins and cleaning towels. What are your favorites?

    1. I use hand towels for drying hands, cloth napkins a few times a week, and rags for cleanup. I wash all my rags separately from anything else. My rags are literally cut up t shirts, but you can buy rags if you don’t want to make your own.

    2. They’re stored separately. We use paper napkins but keep them in a pretty basket next to the table. The washcloths (aka the thing to wash dishes and wipe counters with; we don’t use sponges or brushes) and hand towels for the kitchen are stored in a cabinet.

      1. Yep! Our dishtowels are in a kitchen drawer and cloth napkins are in a drawer in the sideboard in the dining room. But honestly, I’m not fussy if napkins get used to wipe up a mess. It feels better than paper.

    3. We have a shallow pull out drawer (like a cutlery drawer) that has our kitchen towels, microfiber cloths, and our ‘good’ steak knives, divvied up by bamboo drawer organizers (bought from amazon) to create three separate sections. I bought a ton of these organizers during covid and organized all our junk drawers/bathroom drawers/sock drawers – 10/10 highly recommend!
      Our formal cloth napkins live in our dining room buffet and our paper napkins sit out on the counter in an Oxo napkin holder (this is one of those cheap-ish purchases I never thought was worth it but OMG it makes such a difference to have them corralled nicely!).

    4. Our cloth paper towels are stored, folded, in an antique ceramic bowl next to the sink for easy reach. (The color of the bowl makes me happy every time I see it.)

      Our dish towels are stored, folded, in a low, wide wicker basket in the bottom cabinet beside the stove.

      1. Oh, and junk towels for disasters of all sizes live in a rubbermaid bucket (that lost it top at some point) in the garage. They’re nominally folded, but we just kind of root through the bucket to address the disaster at hand, so it gets kinda messy, but it’s in the garage, so we don’t care.

    5. Time for an edit. Toss all the old yucky stuff. Personally we do paper towels or paper napkins for our own dinners and I keep the good cloth napkins for entertaining – that’s too much extra laundry. You can get compostable paper, which is what we do.

    6. Definitely store them separately! Cloth napkins in a kitchen drawer, cleaning rags under the sink, hand towels down the hall in the linen cabinet in my house.

    7. Kitchen towels in a drawer in the kitchen (overflow in the dining room credenza), cloth napkins in a basket in the dining room.
      Though we are pretty low key about our cloth napkins so I don’t mind them being used for messes – they are mostly cut up flannel blankets or tablecloths from Goodwill.

    8. I have “nice napkins” and “daily napkins” and never the two shall meet. Our daily napkins are these flannel things from the river store and it doesn’t matter if people use them as rags/cleaning cloths in the kitchen – that’s actually part of the point; they can be used for a variety of kitchen purposes. (I have a very different set of cloths for cleaning the bathroom and have made it clear there are two sets for a reason.)

      IMO the only way to efficiently manage this is to A. do all the kitchen laundry in one big load and B. as it comes out of the dryer, do your separation as you fold – make different stacks of different things, and then store different cloths in different places. We stopped using paper towels during the pandemic when you couldn’t get them, and I won’t go back to using them now (we keep an emergency roll or two for bad messes like poop or vomit). I have daily napkins, “nice” napkins, a huge stack of kitchen towels, the bathroom cleaning rags and then other cleaning rags for the rest of the house. I wash the kitchen stuff and dusting/”other non-bathroom” cloths separate from the bathroom cleaning cloths and then sort and distribute once every thing is folded. “A place for everything and everything in its place,” as my grandma taught me, actually works pretty well even though it’s not the most fun thing to maintain.

    9. Cloth napkins in pretty bowl on the table.
      Dish cloths and rags in a drawer.
      Table cloths and place mats in a different drawer.

    10. When towels/napkins get “demoted” to cleaning rags, I mark them (I do a black thread zig-zag stitch but a Sharpie “X” would work). Makes them easy to spot when putting away & is a cue for the other member of my household who may not be otherwise attuned to “good towels” vs “grody towels” (which leads to the former becoming the latter more rapidly than ideal…)

    11. I have very few drawers and a lot of cabinets in my kitchen, so I got one of those Elfa cabinet drawer units from the container store (also I rent, so I can take it with me and repurpose it when I move). The napkins, cloth towels, and cloths for wiping the counter are in their own stacks in the drawers. I use the rest of the drawer space for rolls of aluminum foil, etc, and the extra width of the cabinet for standing up cookie sheets. Cloths for heavy duty cleaning are in the closet with cleaning supplies. I have a metal wire basket (from Ikea I think) under the kitchen sink, where used kitchen linens go.

    12. Daily use cloth napkins are folded in a rectangular basket on a shelf by the dining table.
      In the kitchen, we have a drawer of dish towels (which are in good enough shape to be hung in view on the stove handle) and a drawer of rags (mostly old didhdowels cut in half and old clothes diapers that we had used as spit up cloths). At this point all the dish towels are old enough there is less difference between rags and dish towels. But we only use rags for the floor (unless a dish towel
      Is already dirty). Cloth napkins are way less absorbent so one tries to use them for wiping up – they are woven cotton, not terry.

    13. This thread is inspiring me to do an edit. We hate folding so we keep the napkins in a big basket in the laundry room, kitchen towels in another big basket, and rags in an old LL Bean tote with my former law firm’s name on it. (Somehow satisfying.) Handy because then when things come out of the laundry we can chuck them immediately into their respective bins. Not a great system but it works if you’ve got the space. (On the other hand, we do not have a kitchen drawer free for napkins.)

    14. Dish cloths and tea towels/dish drying towels live in a drawer in the kitchen. Cloth napkins and rags are stacked in the linen closet around the corner from the kitchen.

      All kitchen cloths can be used to dry dishes/hands/wipe up kitchen messes. Rags are for non-kitchen cleaning, and cloth napkins are used once and then tossed in the laundry.

    15. We have separate cloth napkins and kitchen towels/washcloths. The cloth napkins are stored in the same drawer as our silverware (it’s around 30″ wide). When I didn’t have the wide drawer, I stored them in a smaller drawer right beside the silverware, so they were easy to grab when grabbing silverware.

      Our kitchen towels/washcloths are under the sink in an acrylic bin. It works moderately well.

      (Not your question, but related: When I wanted to stop using so much paper towel, I simply stopped buying big packages and stored the one roll under the sink instead of on the counter. It’s only DH and I, so I figured if it bothered him he could buy more. This works quite well – we just adapted to using the cloth kitchen towels.)

      My favorite kitchen towels are honestly just the flour sack dish towels I grabbed at the grocery store. I have some other ones from Target and Ikea, but I’ll grab the flour sack ones first. They’re not that cute and yes they get stained, but they’re easy and effective for daily use. I might put a cuter one out if we have company over.

      I got this big batch of napkins before a big holiday event I hosted a few years ago and still have them – they’re holding up better than I expected to be honest: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089KVP2WK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

    16. I have a dedicated little side table with drawers in my living room that holds our napkin collection. It’s twenty feet from the dining table and arguably not ideal but since got used to constantly moving and making do….it’s just what it is and remains very low on my priority list to change. Kitchen towels are stored in the butler’s pantry in a basket. Also not really ideal since it is around a corner but it’s fine for our pokey, old house.

    17. This might be weird, but I don’t use napkins or paper towels. If I need to, I wash my hands or use a dish rag to wipe something up. Having less stuff is easier for me. Kitchen things are kept in the kitchen and I keep cleaning rags with my linens or under a bathroom sink.

      1. op here, i love everyone weighing in about this!
        I would love to live with less, anon 12:03! I have two young kids, though and they are messy. I think another part of the problem is my open concept house, I’d love a separate dining room with its own storage. Seems like its time for a ruthless edit!

    18. I have a drawer for kitchen towels and a basket in the laundry room for rags. We use paper napkins except for holidays and they’re in a cool handmade napkin holder I found on Etsy.

      I think the key is to store all of these things different places and to use your words about what is used for what with your family.

    19. Are cloth napkins and individual napkin rngs a thing of the past? We still use them and keep the supply of clean napkins in the same drawer near where we eat.

    20. All of the napkins are the same red fabric. They live in a drawer in the kitchen with the kitchen towels (an assortment of tea towels purchased on various trips – they travel well, are light, don’t spill or break). The microfiber cleaning towels are all the same size and color (grey) and they live in a cabinet in the laundry room.

    21. Cleaning towels are in a bin under the sink. Dishtowels in a drawer. Everyday napkins have a basket on the table.

    22. I keep a basket of all of our cloth napkins out on the kitchen counter near the dining table. I keep a few hand towels hanging off the oven and wash every week or as they get dirty. We use the hand towels as extra dish drying, but only clean with a sponge. If you have room, you could give a kitchen drawer up to linens, and add dividers to make it clear what are napkins, hand towels and rags.

  9. I want to get more involved in my community and would appreciate suggestions. I’m married with no kids, dogs, mid 30s in houston. Issues I care about are womens issues broadly, rehabilitating violent offenders, and promoting literacy and reading. any suggetions?

    What have others done that they found meaning in?

    1. Hi fellow Houstonian!

      Have you subscribed to the CityCast newsletter? They always share cool events and volunteer opportunities. I also like the offthekuff blog which talks about local politics/happenings – they link to local organizations which presumably would love volunteer support.

      Also, you likely know this but the Houston Public Library is amazing – and they have lots of volunteer opportunities.

    2. I think the best thing you could do is a Big Sister mentor. There are other organizations but a lot of times they end up being just fundraising mechanisms and as such hard to feel very connected. You could also do Junior League, but you’re getting a little old for that. You could do it but I think you may age out pretty quickly. (You may want to check me there.) Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be anything similar for our age. :(

    3. I like more hands-on volunteering that’s different from my day job. So I keep an eye out for calls for volunteers for a specific event and have gotten to know organisations that way.

    4. For literacy and reading, if there are any organizations that work with unhoused, especially families, they may have some sort of tutoring program you could join. Those same organizations may also broadly touch on womens’ issues, depending on what you’re specifically looking to address within that.

    5. Women’s prison book project is an amazing organization, as is Free Minds in DC – both focus on literacy and the prison system. There is probably a similar org near you if you’re in a major city or may be ways to get involved in those virtually.

    6. The public library usually runs literacy programs and wants volunteers, but I’ve never personally been involved, just seen ads.

    7. I’m in my very late 30s, live in the ‘burbs, and have kids. Out here, a lot of women I know are the grassroots fundraising machine for local organizations. We live in a wealthy suburb full of generous families that need to be connected to a cause and the people I know are that connection. They will share an organization’s specific need to one of our local community groups and honestly within 24 hours that need is met or (often) exceeded.

      Boston public school teacher needed books for her 1st grade classroom. Within a week she had crates of age-appropriate books, a full amazon wishlist of classroom supplies filled. Homeless shelter was looking for women’s clothing and travel/sample toiletries. Shelter for refugees had a family that needed an entire 2 BR apartment furnished. Our community got it done in less than 48 hours, including gift cards to Target because we weren’t sure on sizes for the kids (all new to New England, had no winter gear). Foster agency had a list of 50 families (kids + parents) that could use Christmas gifts/donations. The woman that posted it to the town ended up going back and getting two more agencies because there were so many people in town that wanted to help we ran out of families to sponsor.

      One of my most recent favorites is a professor at a local community college. She posted that she had a new crop of students that were first generation college students and working while attending class and had basically nothing. We got them set up with all the tech they needed, parking passes, gas cards and even some school swag to get the year off on the right foot.

      Someone has to identify the community need (work with local agencies, social workers, etc) and then sit there and coordinate the generous donations (which are often surplus household goods/items, not just money). This is kind of a pain and would be perfect for someone with ample time and space as well as the deeper connections you have to a community as you get older.

      1. OP here. That is definitely in my future. Right now I’m in a place where I need to find purpose and meaning before I charge forward toward that or any other goal. So I’m starting small.

        1. start attending local officials’ town halls and city council meetings!

      2. I do consulting helping candidates. If you’re a Dem woman, I highly recommend the Emerge program. It’s in most states. It provides fantastic, in-depth training on the nuts and bolts of running or working/volunteering on a campaign. It also offers an alumnae support network in addition to your cohort going through the program with you. There’s probably a similar program for GOP women (just guessing here).

      1. +1

        I have a rescue dog and I’ve gotten to be friends with his former foster. She’s similarly situated to you and she does one rescue after another. It’s a big time commitment but extremely meaningful.

        And we have get-togethers a few times a year for my dog’s breed, usually at a brew pub, and she runs a raffle to raise money for the rescue she fosters for.

    8. My city has a program that helps women coming out of prison. It provides housing, job support/training, etc. It is not a city-run program, but is a non-profit. Maybe your city has something like that?
      I also take my kids to the local homeless shelter and we help serve food, clean, organize and distribute supplies, and read to the children. Now that my kids are a little older, they read to the younger kids.

      1. Is the first organization you describe in DC by chance? I’m looking for something like that

    9. Houston specific recommendation – look into The Hay Center. It provides continuing services to children aging out of foster care and needs volunteers as mentors. Great opportunity if you are not looking to volunteer, but not with young children.

    10. Hi fellow Texan! I’m a similar demographic and located in DFW. I highly recommend checking out your local Junior League! I had a stereotype in my head that it would be snooty/frivolous before I joined, but that hasn’t been the case at all! I’ve had a great experience getting to know like-minded women and giving back to my city. We do tons of volunteer work, and there are also lots of opportunities to connect socially within the League. They’re probably holding informational sessions right about now for new members who will start in the summer, so I encourage you to check it out!

  10. I really like the Reiss dress posted yesterday. I think Reiss runs small, so thinking I should maybe order a M (I’m a S or size 4 in most brands). Can anyone here advise?

    1. Reiss is def more traditional sizes vs. US vanity sizing. I’m usually a 6 or 8 in JCrew dresses and in Reiss’s US sizes (not the British sizes) I need like a 12, and even then the proportions are all wrong for an hourglass. Brand is best if you’re built like Kate Middleton.

      1. +1 – the brand runs long and narrow, similar to Theory. I take my usual British size (UK 10/US 6) there. I find them pretty TTS if you know your ‘designer’ or British sizing and my main complaint is that they don’t do petite sizes. On another note, I’m 5’4, is the average height of European women 5’7?? I always have to hem at least 3-4 inches off every European brand and it’s closer to 6 inches for Zara which is crazy because I don’t think I’m THAT short.

        1. I absolutely love Reiss — and echoing that it runs small compared to US sizing. I regularly size up one US size.

    2. Reiss is definitely cut slim, but fairly true to size for designer brands. I would probably order a M in your case, since in the sizing section it says that this dress runs small and to order a size up if you’re between sizes.

    3. I agree Reiss runs small and long. For anyone who is interested, the dress is available in petite sizing on the Reiss website.

  11. Vicarious shopping help pls. I need to get a couple of nice sneakers I can wear to work (I’m an MBB partner, clients are generally business casual). Y’all suggested cole haan, and there are a lot of nice looking options. anyone want to help me pick 2? 1 that’s black and 1 that’s a more neutral color? I don’t have any brown in my wardrobe, although it’s fine if the other pair of shoes are.

    TIA!

    1. I would go Golden Goose or some other fashion sneaker so the look is intentional not frumpy. I sit in the c-suite and pair fashion sneakers with work looks all the time (adding in case you think I’m out of touch for your level or something).

          1. Ugh. I think those look frumpy as hell. Like all of the clunky huge white grandpa sneakers.
            No one I work with would wear those.

      1. +1 to this – depending on your price point the Loewe flow is sooo pretty and the Tory Burch Hank is also really nice. I see the Gucci Aces around but not as much as a few years back.

          1. Another mom at school wore them and I asked about them, then realized they were $700 suede sneakers. Gorgeous, but no. The Tory Burch Hank low court sneakers have a very similar look/feel imho.

      2. 45-yo here who thinks those sneakers are the height of frumpy and so struggling to see how they are cool. could you give me an outfit example or two? teach me your ways!

        1. There’s a tipping point around your age, and I am well past it, where fashion sneakers on us just look like orthopedic shoes for our morning mall walking group.

          1. Totally.

            And I think the young kids look ridiculous wearing them to work.
            And for paying that $ for them.

    2. OP here. thank you for the recs and 1 ignorant question- all of these look more sneaker like than some of the leather cole haan ones, which reads more casual to me. How are these other ones better? Or is that what the poster meant by looking intentional- that they’re sneakers that don’t try to look like work shoes but in sneaker form?

      1. Exactly. If you’re going to wear sneakers wear a fashion sneaker, the sneakers that try to look like work shoes are really ugly. Alternately – driving mocs and smoking slippers are much more comfortable than heels and available in price points from TJ Maxx all the way up to Stubbs and Wooton.

      2. FWIW I work in a business casual environment but one that tilts more formal, I like to think I push the envelope a bit for work attire for fun, I am all about team work sneaker….but I personally think Golden Gooses are too casual for the work environment you describe because of the beat up look. Doesn’t mean I’m right, but I was surprised no one else offed that opinion so thought i would.

      3. I love my burgandy / cordovan colored leather top cole haans. I call them my “rich old white man” shoes because every male attorney making over $1mm/year in my region wears them.

    3. Disagree with Golden Goose. I think a low top white leather sneaker like the Cole Haans are perfect for work.

      1. +1. I think Golden Goose and Loewe Flow would look out of place in a business casual office. In a casual office, sure that is fine, but OP said she is at a MBB and clients are bus casual.

      2. I think I agree. Golden Goose probably wouldn’t look right with business casual outfits – but maybe I’m not thinking of the right outfits? What would you guys pair them with?

      3. I enjoy hearing about what works and doesn’t work in various offices. I work in higher ed (assitant dean level) and we’re business casual, but the Golden Goose sneakers would not fly at all becasue conspicuous consumption (designer labels, etc.) is just not done at our institution even at the highest levels, and fairly or unfarily, I think most people view Golden Goose as the shoes you wear primarily to show people you can afford to wear $700 sneakers.

        1. I’m in higher ed (dean) and same. Faculty already think we get paid too much and don’t want to add full to that fire.

        2. Yes, this would stand out at any university I know. I think it would actually read “student”! (There’s always the independently wealthy faculty member with the “if you know, you know” low-key designer wardrobe, but that’s different. Also they get gossiped about a little anyway.)

    4. This might be too late, but I just went on a similar sneaker quest in a similar context, and got the Nisolo black leather sneakers

  12. How much do you make and how much do you usually spend on non-fixed expenses (groceries, eating out, shopping, pretty much everything else)?

    I’ve been spending more than I’ve been budgeting and so I can’t quite tell if I’m trying to have me on too lean of a budget or if I need to rein in my spending?

    FWIW, my monthly take home is $3700 and I aim to spend $1000-$1200, but spending has been close to $1200-$1500. I feel like I’ve been very consciously budgeting and trying to not overspend and yet I’m still spending more than anticipated.

    Fixed expenses (rent, utilities, phone, gym, car insurance, subscriptions) are about $1750. I try to contribute $400 to savings and $400 towards tuition payments a month but have been coming up short on contributions to both.

      1. Oh for sure inflation is causing part of this. I’m just trying to gauge what other people are spending and should I adjust my expectations?

        Even as an avid reader of Refinery 29 Money Diaries, I truly have no idea if spending $1200 a month is normal? Low? High?

        1. wow so i’m way way higher than that. mortgage alone is 4000, savings for 529s and roth alone take us up to $5000. credit card bills are regularly $6000-$8000 (paid fully each month).

          1. It sounds like we’re in different phases of life though! I’m single, child free, downtown city dwelling renter and you’re a homeowner and I assume a parent (529s) quite high earning and potentially dual income? I expect when I’m in your phase of life my spending will be much, much higher too!

    1. We stay well under $1000 for two people in a VHCOL area. That’s mostly groceries/household items, eating out, very little shopping or tickets etc.
      I feel like even more than inflation on groceries, it’s takeout and eating out that has pretty much doubled in cost, so I am a little more careful how often I opt for these things.

      1. Wow! I’m so curious how you do this? Would you mind providing a bit more detail or breakdown?

        I aim for $400 on groceries, $400 on anything fun (going out to eat or a bar, buying coffee, buying lunch at work, tickets to an event, transportation to something fun, hobby equipment, pedicures, any alcohol purchases) and $200-$300 on everything else (toiletries, household supplies and cleaning supplies, anything I need for the apartment, any clothes or shoes, haircuts).

        I’m really curious how you manage to spend less than me for two people in a VHCOL. I’m in a M/HCOL city.

      2. Respectfully , how do you spend “well under $1000 for two people in a VHCOL”? Even for the most frugal of frugal, that sounds impossible.

      3. I’m also very curious about this. My husband and I live in a M/HCOL suburb and our discretionary spending on food and drink alone averages $1500/month, although we do get takeout at least once a week and usually do one nicer dinner a month. When you add in random household expenses and travel, it quickly gets to be well over $3000 overall for us.

      4. well, putting everything together, it turns out I was underestimating some things!!! Ugh, life has gotten expensive…
        Weekly CSA box $115/month
        Grocery shopping, almost exclusively at Trader Joe’s, about 3 times a month $300/month
        Target random household needs $50/month
        Costco trip maybe 5 times a year, $350 a pop, so $145/month
        so far, so frugal. $610/month. Here is where it goes off the rails
        Takeout weekly at $60 – $270/month
        Going out if weekly at $80 – $360/month
        Now we are at $1240/month —that was a bit of an eye opener!

        1. I don’t even understand how this is possible… for me, one person, in a MCOL city, groceries are readily $400-$500 and going out for 2 cocktails is almost $40 with tip, much less an actual meal.
          But also— do you not have any streaming services? Never buy pet food or new underwear or have any hobbies that cost money or go to any concerts or theater?

          Not judging just also have had to shift some of my savings to spend budget this year because life has gotten so expensive.

      5. Interesting, I feel the opposite. Seems like our grocery bill has doubled, but takeout has increased by much less, maybe 10-20%. We live in a LCOL area and don’t eat in fancy places, though.

    2. I have higher take home, but similar spending. I spend about $3,000 per month, of which about $1,700-ish is fixed, so about $1,300 discretionary. My partner does the same. In a HCOL city. And that’s not even counting travel costs for vacation, weddings, family visits, etc., or house costs like a new air conditioner last year, which I budget separately. We definitely splurge on nice meals out occasionally, drinks out, have takeout lunch instead of packing it, and I pay too much for haircuts, but don’t feel like we’re living extravagantly.

      1. Interesting! I eat probably 95% of my meals at home (pack all lunches at work, maybe takeout 1x a month, rarely eat dinner out (1-2x a month) but if I do it’s to socialize). I do go to happy hour pretty often (usually just drinking, sometimes get an app) as that’s the majority of my socializing and I’m also going on lots of first dates right now (and I always offer to split the cost).

        I feel like I rarely shop (and when I do it’s Old Navy or thrift stores) and have cut way back on personal care spending (do nails and eyebrows at home, drugstore brand makeup and skincare; my haircuts are expensive but only 3x a year).

        Wedding related costs definitely add up, but I have a sinking fund for those and try to rewear dresses as often as I can. But, travel, gifts, and bachlorettes definitely add up!

    3. Do you have pets? I always somehow forget to include pet food/vet bills/boarding/grooming expenses in my budgets which add up to quite a bit.
      Prices are definitely up this year. I’d look at small steps – can you see if you’re eligible for discounts on any services through work/AAA membership? Can you cut or bundle a subscription or use the library more? I swapped from Orangetheory to my local community gym and I’m actually using it more because having an open gym works better for my schedule than set classes (and they offer more classes than I expected!).

      1. I almost got a pet last year and with inflation Im so glad I didn’t!

        Good call on seeing what discounts I can get through work. I will definitely check.

        Right now I’m down to 3 subscriptions (composting, only one streaming service, and the gym – only $35/mo so probably can’t find much cheaper) and riding out but not renewing a few others (Prime and a magazine).

      2. I always forget about my cat’s prescription medications and human medical expenses too. My cat needs a $60 medication every 3 months plus some OTC supplements.

        Our HHI is ~110K and I actually tallied our healthcare spending for tax purposes this year. More than $3K of medical/dental/prescription copays plus an additional $12K of fertility treatments. (Did you know that even if your fertility treatments are covered, the cost of donor gametes is not?) This is with a super low deductible, super generous hc plan too, I can’t imagine the pain otherwise.

        No wonder things feel tight!

    4. Pay yourself first. Automatically send the money to savings and to your loans. Then spend what you have left. when you are out of money, stop spending. That’s the only way I stuck to my goals when my income was tight. Frankly, it’s the only way I still stick to my savings goals!

      1. I am still contributing $800/mo to savings and grad school tuition as well as 10% to my 401k (with 6% match)

        I just don’t know if this $800 to savings, $1100 spending is realistic or if I should adjust. Trying to understand a reasonable savings/fun balance for myself

        1. There’s a bit of a learning curve, but YNAB was a godsend when we were working to stretch every penny. The things that killed our budget were things that I would forget about until they were due, like subscription renewals or car insurance, or infrequent big expenses like new glasses (specialty lenses) or passport renewal. This way I would take them into account and budget 1/12 of them each month, so that when they came due I didn’t have to scramble or feel like it was a big sacrifice.

        2. FWIW, I think $1100-$1200 is going to be low-ish, like that’s a range where you need to think carefully about purchases that don’t necessarily feel *extravagant*

          But the more important question is whether YOU want to get your spending lower, or not, and the tradeoffs with your other life and savings goals

          For what it’s worth, I’m similar ish in life stage (single, early thirties, mhcol city) and I spend ~1200-$1400/month outside of rent. I basically have cheap hobbies, a deeply engrained 6th sense of keeping track of which grocery store has the cheap milk; no major medical expenses; get takeout once-twice per week (less than $20; and I’m including something like a fancy coffee as takeout); but I’m also intentionally trying to be less scared about spending money than I have been in the past (ie. let go of some grad school habits). So if my socks have holes, I can buy new ones. I got into running and I bought the right, supportive, $120 running shoes. I don’t stress about the cost of gas to go hiking on a weekend.

          so to me, the $200-$300 for “everything else” sounds a little low – there’s just so much everything else covers, but ymmv

      2. Yeah, this. I always say my money is untouched by human hands because the paychecks come in, the savings (various accounts for various purposes) go out automatically, and the bills get paid automatically. Then whatever’s left is available for spending.

        1. Controversial but if you are like me and have a safety net already, I’m just… not stressing about money this 6 months—year while inflation is so high and investment returns so low. It’s not a forever plan but I was getting so tired of having to cut my “fun” budgets due to inflation on all fronts for some mythical future investment return and it’s just not worth the stress.

          1. Can you explain a bit about how you see things getting back to a more sustainable level for your personal budget? When inflation returns to 2-3%, do you expect prices to come back down or your income to catch up with cost of living, so that you’ll have a better savings rate?

          2. You realize that even if inflation goes down, prices won’t, right? Inflation dropping just means the *rate* of growth slows down. The current prices are here to stay, so if you can’t make your budget work I think you have a long term issue.

    5. Our take home (dual income) after maxing two retirement accounts is about $8,500. We don’t have a mortgage or rent, but we have probably $1.5-2k in fixed expenses including property tax, utilities, insurance, $1,200 in daycare (this is going away in August, hooray!) and another $2k in what I consider household basics like groceries (we don’t buy anything fancy), home and lawn maintenance, a cleaning service, etc. We spend the rest ($3-4k) on fun stuff, mainly travel and restaurant food. We could definitely save more if we cut back on fun stuff, but the pandemic has made me feel that just “good enough” savings is enough, and I want to enjoy our lives while we’re young and healthy enough to do it. We don’t budget strictly, just cut back on fun stuff for a bit if we have a month when our credit card bill exceeds our take home pay.

    6. I would recommend downloading six months of your banking data to Excel. Add a column for Category, then just categorize everything. Every single transaction. (Of course, this is easier if you do everything from one account –all debit card, all credit card, etc.)

      Then create a Pivot Table with Category in the lower left box and Sum of Category in the lower right box. This will tell you how much you spent over six months. Divide by six for the average monthly amount.

      1. I track religiously in Mint!

        I know where it’s going (like I know $x for groceries and $y for utilities and $z for happy hours) but I think I struggle with how much everything costs now!

    7. I’m in a very different life situation than you (marriage, kids, mortgage etc) so not really able to answer your first question, but am very thankful for the tough financial advice I received when I was younger so want to share. In short, for your second question, I think you need to rein in your spending. Which sucks!

      The advice I received was:

      1) savings, especially retirement savings, are not optional. The rough math is saving 15% means you need to work for 43 years. Auto withdraw and pretend the money was never there. Work within the budget you actually have,
      2) pay close attention and save for your “one off” expenses. A friend’s wedding, a girls trip, a fun concert, needing a new laptop, your car insurance that happens every 6 months etc. They’re rare so we don’t account for them, but honestly there’s always something.
      3) your rent is where the real savings are

      1. Hi! I didn’t include the retirement savings in my original post as they’re pre-tax and I just included post-tax numbers but I do contribute 10% of my salary to my 401k and my employer matches 6%.

        I have an emergency fund and several sinking funds that I contribute to (from the aforementioned $400 that I aim to contribute to savings). I have the emergency fund, the tuition fund (the other $400 I aim to save) and then sinking funds for a range of things ranging from attending weddings, car expenses, technology replacement, health expenses and splurges.

        I live in a one bedroom which is a bit of a splurge, but my rent is $400+ less than many of my friends (it’s really priced like a studio!). I actually wanted to live with roommates another year but all of my friends live alone or with partners and I am not willing to do a random roommate anymore.

        I unfortunately probably do need to cut back on spending, but I’m not how to do so without feeling deprived. I very rarely shop, have cut back on most subscriptions (save for Netflix, composting and my cheap gym), walk 95% of the places I go, never get my nails done, use the library instead of books, etc. Obviously my category to cut back on is social and fun spending, but my friends and I have already changed how we socialize to spend money (staying in splitting a $12 bottle of wine instead of going out).

        1. Sounds like your next step is bring in more income: either switch jobs or get a second job/side hustle/consulting

  13. Please share your best tips for a good night sleep! I have no problem falling asleep but most nights I wake up in the middle of the night and then lay awake for hours. The middle of the night awakening is not tied to having to go to bathroom,outside noise, etc. I’ve tried counting sheep, relaxing my body, etc. Of course, worst nights are often the nights I need to recharge in anticipation of busy or big day.

    1. Is your room cool enough? I’ll wake up and be unable to fall back asleep even if it’s only a degree or two too warm.

    2. Cool room and breathable lines, comforter, and clothing.

      Try going to bed later. My body often interprets a too-early bedtime as a nap, and I wake up 3-4 hours later, too rested to sleep.

      Melatonin.

    3. I have frequent insomnia around 4am that lasts a few hours.

      I do best when I get out of bed and do something (can’t tell you how often I’ve caught up on work at 4am).

      Mine seems to be caused by anxiety maybe 50% of the time and just good old fashioned insomnia the remaining time. If I have hangxiety it’s worse. So, I am simultaneously trying to work on my anxiety and cut back on drinking

      1. I used to call it the white wine wide awakes.

        I could stave it off by having no more than one glass of wine for a long time.

        But now even one glass does it, so I’m an accidental teetotaler. Sleep > wine.

    4. My sleep neurologist said that melatonin isn’t recommended for waking up in the middle of the night (it’s more for falling asleep in the first place). Caffeine consumed during the day can contribute to waking up and not being able to fall back asleep (I didn’t know this; I thought it only affected falling asleep, but I guess it can do both). Blood sugar dropping in the middle of the night can wake people up (because the body produces stress hormones to raise glucose back to normal range, but this makes people very awake). For this my doctor recommended a high protein snack before bed. Histamine dumps in the middle of the night can wake people up too; switching from taking any allergy meds in the AM to the PM can help.

      Setting aside all the really solid evidence based stuff, I’ve also taken L-serine to avoid waking up part way through the night. I know the research support that it helps prevent nighttime awakenings is weak, but I’m okay with placebo effect for something like this.

      1. Melatonin is normally recommended for falling asleep not staying asleep, but I do know people (my mom) who found it helps with the latter as well.

    5. I have recently seen a few articles about how humans may actually be wired to sleep in two phases, with a separation of a few hours in the middle of the night. For example, see https:// www. sleepfoundation. org/ how-sleep-works/ biphasic-sleep. Or Google “biphasic sleep.” It may be that this is just the way you sleep, instead of being a problem.

      1. Yeah, I tend to just lean into this — if I wake up I will read for an hour or two and then it’s fairly easy to go back to sleep.

    6. Worked on this with my therapist and I still wake up in the middle of the night, but Im not laying awake for hours anymore.

      Biggest thing for me has been restricting my bed for sleeping and gardening. No reading, eating, hanging out in bed at all.
      I also got a sunlight alarm clock, it makes me feel like I’m waking up naturally and I often turn the alarm of 5 or 10 minutes early. Much better than being jolted awake by my dreaded phone alarm.
      My therapist doesn’t love that I use podcasts as ‘white noise’ but they work really well for me on low low volume. I have 2 podcasts that are very mellow voices talking about very academic or niche areas of history, and a handful of asmr and yoga nidra youtube videos that knock me out better than melatonin ever has.

      If you’re awake and staring at the ceiling, get out of bed. Maybe you get sleepy and try sleeping again after 40 minutes, maybe you’re just awake the rest of the night. Try not to put any judgement on yourself for whether you sleep or not. If you sleep, great. If you don’t, you’ll be tired tomorrow afternoon, that’s okay too, you’ll live.

      Go to bed and get up at roughly the same times every day. Are you trying to force yourself to sleep more hours than you actually need? I notice I just need a lot less sleep a few nights each month, and there’s usually one or two days a month where I’d do anything for a nap mid afternoon.

        1. Hi! Sure – The History of Rome podcast, The History of Byzantium podcast, and The Maritime History Podcast (has not had a new episode in ages but I replay episodes)

          I joke that somewhere deep in my subconscious is the answer to the winning trivia question, but don’t ask me about any of the actual content covered in these podcasts!

          I found a sweet little podcast called Woolgathering that’s stories with a few journaling or reflection questions at the end. Like little bedtime stories once in a while.

          1. Thank you!! Look forward to learning and/or being lulled to sleep with this topics :)

    7. For me, there is a direct correlation if I’ve had alcohol to waking up between 2am – 4pm and not being able to get back to sleep. Not sure if that applies to you, but that’s my anecdotal findings.

    8. I’ll also add to these recommendations that I like to do wind down yoga and a short breathing or meditation session (in that order) before bed. It might be 10 minutes of yoga or stretching or 5 minutes of meditation or alternate nostril breathing (google it) and it really helps. Also doing yoga before bed helps me feel less still and achy in the morning.

      1. +1. Listening to The Meditation Podcast or doing a bedtime cool down with Yoga with Adrienne are the only two things that reliably make me sleep well through the night (as measured by Fitbit showing deep, restful sleep). Unisom gets me unbroken sleep, but it’s not super restorative.

    9. Drinking a glass of milk puts me back to sleep. No idea why but it does. I woke up at 430 this morning, I tossed and turned for 20 minutes until I gave up, got a glass of milk, and was asleep again 5 minutes later.

      1. Thanks Anon at 10:55 who solved this one for me! I have hypoglycemia, so it’s a blood sugar issue for sure.

    10. try the sleep app Loona, or the tip about having a spoonful of peanut butter

      I’m surprised to hear CBD or Delta 9 gummies would work, the regular THC gummies are so unpredictable as to when and how much they kick in.

    11. Tips I thing I heard about on a podcast that helped me were 1) no eating or drinking for at least a couple of hours before bedtime, 2) right before bed, making a list of all of the things on my mind, and writing down the next step I would take for each of them –for me this was a mix of work and life to-dos. #1 stopped me from waking up as much and #2 would help if I woke up because my brain didn’t feel the need to worry about I needed to do tomorrow, I knew the list was right there next to me, and things were (at least sort of) under control.

      1. For me, a weighted blanket helps me stay asleep / fall back asleep — it feels like it keeps me from moving around as much (I’m a tosser and turner) and somehow that helps

    12. For me, I’m pretty sure it’s hormonal. Spending time outside helps but can be challenging on a work day.

    13. About an hour before bed, I make a cup of naturally calm magnesium “tea” (just the powder mixed in hot water… always the unflavored powder). For bed, I wear a tempurpedic eye mask – the only one I’ve found that blocks out all the light and my sleep phones brand headphones. I listen to a lighthearted podcast with the sleep timer on (usually a TV show recap podcast).

  14. Any recommendations on a protein powder for morning smoothie that’s not full of crap? Trying to eat more carbs and protein and less fat. It doesn’t need to be vegan, but bonus points for something vegetarian.

    I haven’t used one in years so not sure what to look for. TIA!

    1. I love the hemp protein powder from trader joe’s in the green can. As a bonus, it also has a lot of fiber.

    2. We buy Body Strong 100 percent whey protein natural in the chocolate flavor. The vendor sells a lot of products by the company, so double check to make sure it is the natural one because the others have crap. We buy from an online vendor called allstarhealth dot com

    3. Following. You might look into Clean Simple Eats protein powder (especially tasty but I’m not sure how much healthier they are compared to, like, Optimum, the brand Costco carries.) Years ago I did BioTrust because I’d heard it was good — I remember it being very chalky and not that sweet.

      I’ve tried Orgain and it was naaasty.

    4. It’s quite pricy but I love the ritual vanilla flavored protein powder. They have a regular one and a postpartum one, they both taste good and are vegan.

    5. I really like the Optimum Nutrition powders – they’re the only ones I’ve found that I can’t really taste much. I put the vanilla one in smoothies and it’s great.

      1. This. I drink the double rich chocolate one. Not super sweet, not a bunch of garbage ingredients.

      2. I just ordered a small package of this one (chocolate)! Thank you!

    6. I like the vega protein and greens. It is a vegan pea protein and also includes spinach and kale powder, so you get an extra 5g of fibre with your protein. The trouble is that it’s not the nicest taste, but if you have it cold enough, it isn’t too bad.

    7. You can buy 100% grass-fed whey products. They have just the one ingredient and are flavorless instead of disgusting.

    8. might be late on this but… Vega All in one protein and greens – I use the plain one

  15. My high school age daughter is starting to think about college/career path. She’s a very solid student- As, honors, etc. at a great high school. She’s got good grades all around but really likes math and it comes easy to her. We were talking about careers that aren’t strictly about doing math but rather, are very well suited to people like her for which math and numbers come easily. She’s been talking about maybe majoring in math in college, but doesn’t want to “do math as my job” ie do word problems and solve for X all day :).

    I suggested she might like studying Econ in college, and whether she majors in math, or econ, or something else entirely, she might be well suited to being a corporate accountant or going into corporate finance.

    Anyone in those fields today? Were you strictly accounting undergrads? That would limit her focus in terms of a college search as she’d been thinking about liberal arts colleges (specifically she’d do really well in an all girls college but she’s not 100% on that yet) or some of the more selective colleges where they don’t have accounting majors per se but could certainly churn out strong financial executives. TBD exactly how competitive a school she could get into, but she’s got very strong PSAT scores, double legacy status at some pretty good schools, and excellent grades so she will land somewhere decent.

    1. Idk why she’d limit herself to an accounting degree tbh. Seems weird. She should go to the best liberal arts school she can get into and afford that has a quality Econ program. Wellesley would be a great fit. Then she can take math and Econ and also explore other interests. If she graduates with an Econ degree she can explore using her math skills to make real money in finance or do something else or do that work for a few years and later move to accounting.

    2. I had several friends who majored in math (“pure” math, as opposed to quantitative econ) in college, and they went on to: teach math, get a PhD in philosophy, do computer science, and work at a quant firm.

      1. It’s not clear to me though if liking high school math is a good predictor for wanting to study math in college (I guess it depends if they’re doing literally any pure math in high school or not!).

      2. OP here, these are the sorts of careers she is not interested in, though I think she would like computer science as a side-field of study (ie take lots of classes and enjoy it but not really want it to be her profession).

      3. My husband majored in math and went on to get a PhD in Civil Engineering; I think his undergrad program was within an engineering school though. He used the PhD to work as an engineer briefly but has primarily been a teacher, first a college professor and now a high school teacher. I loved math and was good at it but majored in art.

      4. +1 on computer science. Both of the math majors I know ended up teaching themselves to code and now work as developers

    3. Has she looked into engineering? An engineering degree from an accredited school opens the door to a lot of careers – very technical design based roles, leading teams, project management, technical sales – I could go on. I knew people who got a bachelors in engineering and went on to medical school or law school, and plenty who got MBAs. Most liberal arts colleges won’t offer engineering, though, so she’d need to expand her search.

      1. So many careers can be supercharged by someone who is not afraid of math! All the STEM obviously, but business degrees, medicine (although maybe not worth the loans unless you are passionate about it?), journalism…

      2. +1 to at least explore engineering or architecture. Tons of opportunities, not enough people graduating from these programs to fill the roles.

        1. Not that I’m recommending that she become a lawyer, but there always seems to be a need for patent lawyers and tax lawyers. So many lawyers joke that they went to law school to avoid math (ugh!), so having some ability and background in math seems to supercharge even a law career.

      3. OP here. Her dad is an engineer-turned-MBA. She isn’t cut from the same engineering cloth (one of my other kiddos is though for sure!).

      4. Yes, there are so many engineering careers! I also wouldn’t go to a small, liberal arts college if she’s interested in math in general. If she ever wanted to change her major, she’d be pretty limited and would not have the tie-in to employers that she would elsewhere. If she wants a more “exclusive” feel, some state universities have honors colleges. That might be worth looking into.

      5. +1! I love math and thoroughly enjoyed my physics undergrad, focusing on atmospheric dynamics, and then have used the math sense in every job since. It is my superpower as a product manager in tech.

    4. what about being an actuary? In retrospect that would have been the perfect job for me but I didn’t know what it was until way too late.

    5. Consider Statistics or Data Science! Those are math-friendly, but also have an interesting problem-solving (but not solving for X) kind of way.

      1. Oh my gosh, yes, data science. I work in a genetics/biology field and data scientists are in big demand.

    6. Corporate accountant here. I majored in accounting with a fine arts minor. Went to a liberal arts/jesuit school in a major city that has a good business school. I was a solid C+ student in regular math classes, average SAT scores and below average PSAT scores, no real extracurricular activities besides some part time work, a couple of AP classes, and just happened to take accounting classes in HS and have that click for me. Sounds like I’d be very mediocre compared to your daughter at the same age.

      If she really likes math, but doesn’t know if she likes accounting I’d recommend finance or econ to start. She’d have to take intro to accounting anyway, and can always change her major if she wants.

      Alot of my peers did accounting plus finance or econ, some double majored, some did major with a minor. It seemed a lot less common for my peers to take minors outside of econ/finance/management/marketing. We had a 5 year program to add on the Masters. I skipped that – I crammed additional credits for my cpa into a couple of summer semesters, graduated a semester late because of a fulltime internship my senior year, and then started work full time two weeks after my last semester ended.

      There are smaller, liberal arts schools out there that have good business programs. You can have a good career whether or not you went to some top 10 competitive B school. The school name on your diploma may get you a foot in the door or into the room, but having a full package you can bring to the table should mean more. (which is why I choose the liberal arts school and non business minor)

      1. “If she really likes math, but doesn’t know if she likes accounting I’d recommend finance or econ to start. She’d have to take intro to accounting anyway, and can always change her major if she wants.”

        This is excellent advice. I was an accounting major from the jump (and had only occasional sparks of greatness in high school math), but if I’d been unsure, this would have been a great way to test it out.

      2. Faugh – said a bad word.

        “If she really likes math, but doesn’t know if she likes accounting I’d recommend finance or econ to start. She’d have to take intro to accounting anyway, and can always change her major if she wants.”

        This is excell3nt advice. I was an accounting major from the jump (and had only occasional sparks of greatness in high school math), but if I’d been unsure, this would have been a great way to test it out.

    7. My undergrad sent a lot of business students to the Big 4 (in all sorts of roles). All but 1 person that I know who does Big 4 accounting had an accounting degree. Consultants and finance folks had a variety of degrees: finance, economics , business information systems, etc.

      My undergrad also had a very strong engineering school. I have friends who majored and now work in all sorts of engineering: mechanical, civil, environmental, biomedical, electrical, aerospace, chemical, materials, and industrial, computer. I akso have a few friends in undergrad who studied computer science.

      In general, my friends in the Big 4 hate their jobs, my other accounting/finance and computer science friends are ambivalent about their careers and my engineering friends are by far the happiest with their jobs. Most work at engineering firms, quite a few work for government , some work in R&D but they’re all happy.

      As for majoring in math, I know 3 people who did it. One teaches high school math, one is getting his PhD and one is an actuary.

      So, if I were her I’d look at schools with an engineering school.

      1. OP here. Dad was an engineer for a while; we know all about that career path. Grandma got her masters in math in 1965 and deferred law school to raise a family then ended up working in a F10 firm in project management. I’m over here with my fluffy liberal arts english degree + MBA counting on my toes but apparently the kids inherited dad’s math genes. :)

        I’ve always said she would make an excellent architect but the buildings/construction/vision of it doesn’t appeal to her. I think she’d make a really good CFO of a small firm or investor– you know, the person in the room that is always looking at the numbers point out what doesn’t add up, asking pointed questions that make the rest of the C-suite go back to their spreadsheets because there is no way our margins look this good. Or finding crafty ways to work the numbers to optimize benefits to the business.

        1. She might be interested in forensic or managerial accounting then. Perhaps a double major in accounting and management?

        2. Yes this could be where she ends up. Lots of ways to get there, but accounting is becoming less common path to CFO. First she needs 10-20 yrs of other business experience: i banking, pe, consulting, learn how things should be done, etc. that will give her options and credentials to have an impact at a smaller company.

    8. College is for learning. Let her major in whatever interests her and a job will come. So many people I know ended up doing things in life that are very different from their majors and what they envisioned as a teenager. There is enough stress in choosing a college; don’t make her choose a career now too. Of course, if you said that she had a specific interest that she wanted to pursue, that would be different. But liberal arts colleges are meant to be used as an exploration.

      FWIW I was an English major, DH was history, son was econ and philosophy, and daughter is completing psych major. None of us are employed in any capacity directly related to our majors and all are doing well.

    9. I wouldn’t push a kid who’s good at math into an accounting major – that limits your career path to just accounting so early. Pretty much all engineering and hard science majors are math-based and with that background you can do pretty much anything. My husband has a math PhD and although he’s living his dream job life as a math professor, many of his grad school classmates went to Google or Goldman Sachs and are insanely rich (you can also go to these places with just an undergrad degree in math, CS, physics or engineering, but you won’t earn as much to start out with). Agree with those saying data science is also math-y and very in demand these days, in any number of industries.

      1. Agree. I’m also not sure that liking high school math is correlated to liking accounting. It depends on why she likes math. I was on our high school math team and absolutely hated accounting when I took it in undergrad. I liked math that was more problem solving/logic based, whereas accounting when I took it was.. not that. I ended up majoring in Economics (in a track that had a lot of statistics) and went to law school. I now work in-house in healthcare. My stats/math background has been helpful in understanding the business I work in and in reading research papers when I worked at a law firm in litigation.

        Other people that were on math team with me ended up doing– consulting (economics majors), engineering (many later ended up in tech/software), medical school, software/tech (CS majors), and finance.

    10. I was a math major and got a Ph.D. in economics. I’m now an economics professor.

      It’s important to realize that many if not most jobs that involve numbers require being able to interpret those numbers in some real-world context and communicate that interpretation to other folks – this kind of interpretation is the work version of formulating and solving word problems. When she says she doesn’t want to do math for her job meaning she doesn’t want to solve word problems, my sense is that she would benefit from broadening her mathematical horizons. (That’s not a criticism – her perceptions are pretty normal for a high school who likes math and is good at it. She could email nuqotw at gmail dot com and I’d be happy to answer a few questions.)

      Math at the college level is all about proofs. Did your daughter take a proof-based geometry class at some point? Did she like it? If so (or even if not) a math major could be a very good fit. She will not, as a math major, be solving for X. Economics is a lot of word problems and using math / data to answer them. She might also consider computer science as a major. (In fact, of all the majors discussed here, I think computer science plus a math minor might be the one to keep as many options open as possible.)

      Actuarial work could be an excellent fit. It’s been a long time since I considered (and rejected) it but IIRC if you can do a summer internship then the firm will pay for your first exam or two.

      I recommend against an undergraduate business degree. My observation is that degree is often a sampling of some of the majors discussed here e.g. economics or accounting without developing expertise in either. If she wants a business degree, she should get an MBA after she gets some work experience.

      1. Agree on the business degree for undergrad. Better to do Econ, finance, or accounting and get an MBA.

    11. Data science or quantitative social sciences. Econ is one of those. Not accounting.

    12. Maybe she could do a summer program with a STEM focus at a university to see whether something is of interest. My kid did a mentored research program with one of the UC schools, learned a lot, had fun, experienced living on a college campus, and earned college credits that transferred to her college degree, all for less than the credits would have cost in her undergraduate program.

      1. Agree, there are lots of great summer programs, both residential and non-residential, at universities.

    13. My daughter is an accounting information systems major (accounting with computer science). Very early in program so no clue if that’s what she’ll end up with but it appealed to her. She wanted real skills and a well ranked smaller university. Half a year in she has only met one other female AIS major- ton of finance and marketing. If she sticks with it her job prospects should should be good.

  16. Looking for ideas for a soup/stew to make this weekend for a small dinner party (5 people). Must be either vegetarian or made with seafood or chicken – no beef or pork. Needs to reheat well (although I think most soups do) as I will be making it earlier in the day and reheating it for dinner. I am considering Bon Appetit’s Chicken and Lentil Soup with Jammy Onions, which is a fave of mine, but am curious if anyone else has another idea that sounds interesting. Thanks!

    1. Manhattan clam chowder – which is really just vegetable soup with clams. I have a great recipe.

      1. I’d be so sad to get clam chowder that wasn’t New England style!!! I’m sorry, yours is probably wonderful, but I think most people get excited about a creamy chowder when they hear clam chowder.

        1. Manhattan clam chowder should not be called chowder. It’s blasphemous. One of my earliest memories is going to a restaurant in NYC with my dad’s family and my Maine-raised mom ordering the clam chowder and being absolutely horrified by what she received.

          1. I am your mom and am from the west coast, where we vacationed at the then-Clam Capital of the World. (Pismo Beach)

      2. I LOVE Manhattan clam chowder – please send the recipe!

        Of course bisques and creamy chowders are good too but I’d rather spend the calories on the bread than the soup, if that makes sense.

        1. Manhattan OP here – and YES, I get you! That’s why I make this soup so regularly! There’s nothing bad for you in it, so I can enjoy my calories elsewhere (carbs in any form).

          1-1/2 pounds potatoes (about 3 medium), cut into 3/4-inch cubes
          1 large onion, chopped
          2 medium carrots, shredded (about 3/4 cup)
          3 celery ribs, sliced
          4 cans (6-1/2 ounces each) chopped clams, undrained
          5 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled
          1 tbsp dried parsley flakes
          1 bay leaf
          1-1/2 tsp dried thyme
          1/4 tsp coarsely ground pepper
          1 can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained

          Cook until cooked :D

    2. Coconut Milk Braised Black Pepper Chicken with Sweet Potatoes from Half Baked Harvest.

    3. I love a chicken or vegetarian chili because it can be customized with various toppings and hot sauce. Other than that I love minestrone or broccoli cheddar soup

    4. If ground turkey is acceptable, the NY Times Lemony White Bean Soup With Turkey and Greens is delish. Google the name and the recipe will pop up. It has a 7500+ five star reviews for a reason!

    5. I am late to the game, but Smitten Kitchen’s chicken and dumpling soup is SO GOOD. You could easily make the soup base and then add on top the dumplings when you reheat to serve. I’ve made it for company a few times and have gotten rave reviews (it also makes killer leftovers).

    6. Made Smitten Kitchen’s tomato soup with grilled cheese the other day (after seeing it recommended here) and WOW was it good. Best tomato soup ever.

  17. Southerner moving north with a basic question: what shoes do you wear in the winter with socks when it’s cold but not snowy/wet? I’m early 40s with a classic/preppy style. I’ve tried ankle boots, but they feel too young/too hip/too not me/too unflattering on my heavy-through-the-hips-and-thighs self. Pictures/links much appreciated.

    1. I often wear high top sneakers. For example, the “If Only” wedge sneaker from Dr. Scholl’s.

    2. Probably 90% of the time, i wear a pair of black wedge heeled blondo booties. I find that cut matters with booties and the little wedge helps with the proportion I want. Alternately, I wear a chunky loafer.

      For casual wear, I wear trail running shoes.

      1. Yeah, this s-t-e was the first place I ever heard people having issues with ankle boots. I grew up in Chicago and went to college and grad school in the Midwest, and if it wasn’t wet or snowy enough for proper snow boots, ankle boots all the way. Wore them with pants over the shaft when wider legs were in style, tucked in when skinny jeans were in. And I wore them with proper socks, because the socks don’t show.

        It’s not high fashion, but I think of it more as a neutral than a frumpy look. Of course, it kind of depends on the boots and the rest of what you are wearing.

    3. I wear either a chelsea boot (they all look the same) or a boot with a low heel — the ones I have are from a prior year but are most similar to the Coclico Caviar boots. I also have insulated high top sneakers from a european brand that I’m blanking on that I wear a lot on the weekends. Any high top sneakers would work though. If you are not used to the cold and get chilly, get some smartwool (or similar) socks and buy your boots to fit with them on (sometimes that’s half a size up, other times it’s your normal size).

    4. I just wear my nice Clark’s boots that fall right below my knee. For cold snowy days, I wear super cheap target boots because they can get destroyed.

    5. Similar style and body type as you. I have embraced the ankle boot; for me, the trick is making sure that my pants are streamlined. I know straight cuts are in, but they look terrrrible on me. If I wear ankle boots, its with slim or skinny pants. I also like bootcut pants paired with a lug-sole boot that isn’t super extreme, style wise. Look at Ecco or Cole Haan. They have boots for grownups that look current without being too young.

  18. Has anyone here tried the Vivaia square toe flats? They look like they’d work for my slightly wide feet. I’m also open to other comfy flats, ideally with a slight (~1 inch) heel.

    1. I wear my diamond engagement ring on my right hand because my wedding band is too wide to wear them together. So there a data set of 1 for a right hand diamond ring.

    2. I wear two rings, one on each ring finger daily. They’re both my wedding rings – I have three because l like to have options. You do you!

    3. Of course they are. Not everyone is married and we deserve to wear diamond jewelry too.

    4. Happily married. Last year, I bought myself a 2 carat right hand diamond band that I love and wear regularly.

    5. I wear my grandmother’s diamond wedding band by itself on my right hand every day.

  19. I’d like to get a gift for my friend’s son. No clue what pre-teen boys are into. He’s into sports, has a ‘girlfriend’, good student. But I’m at a loss with this age – it’s not kid toys age, what to do?

    1. find out his gaming thing of choice – gift cards for Steam, for example. Maybe a gift card to a local restaurant or fast casual place to take his girlfriend out.

    2. My nephew and his friend group in that age rage are obsessed with Raising Cane’s. I’d go with a gift card if you have those in your area.

    3. If you really want to get something, baseball hat, especially if you’re in a different city with a fun sports team or have a connection to one (college, something like that) + a gift receipt. My son is 14 and he got 13 gift cards + 1 board game for his birthday, so gift card is definitely the trend, but he would have loved an interesting baseball hat.

      Alternatively: Starbucks or ice cream gift card so he can take out the girlfriend.

    4. My son just turned 13 but the past year he enjoyed getting Amazon, Target and Barnes & Noble gift cards.

  20. Can anyone recommend a good way to get better at pushups, like a 30-day challenge or something that gets progressively harder? (I don’t know why, but no I will not just do them.)

    1. A vinyasa or power yoga challenge that includes a lot of chaturangas would help. It’s not exactly the same move, but it sounds like just doing pushups doesn’t do it for you. This would give you more variation but build upper body strength quickly.

      1. Second yoga! I love a good power yoga class and I’m so sore after. Other than that, try something like purebarre. Go a few times a week and you’ll see improvements.

    2. I have improved doing them against stairs. Knee pushups were not helpful. So start at say 4 steps up from the bottom (hands in the step, toes on ground) 3 sets of 10 reps, then after a few days/week move to 3 steps from the bottom, then so on and so forth.

    3. If you google “30 day push up challenge” you’ll find about 750,000 calendars. Chose one and follow it.

      I have a group of friends that I do this with. We take turns picking out a challenge (pushups, planks, squats, wall sits, etc), send it out to everyone and then we all do them. Or at least claim in a text message that we do them, I very rarely actually see the people doing them. It’s a fun way to motivate ourselves. The group started when one other mom and I broke off from a Mama and Baby fitness group, then added someone from her gym, and someone from my yoga class. We number about 10 now.

  21. Friends,
    What is happening in Florida is a national emergency. Just google Moms 4 Liberty if you don’t know what I am talking about. The Governor is far more dangerous than Trump. I don’t care where you live, please help! This man is eyeing the White House. Send money to whatever your favorite organization is, planned parenthood, ACLU, NAACP, I don’t care. As long as it is not the Federalist Society!

    1. Why do you assume that everyone on this board is super liberal? What about people whose preferred cause IS the Federalist Society? Part of living in this country is accepting that people can have different opinions than you. DeSantis won by the largest margin since 1982.
      I live just outside Philly and am politically moderate but attitudes like yours are why people complain about the intolerant left.

        1. The right doesn’t make tolerance a huge part of their platform the way the left does, so there isn’t any hypocrisy when they’re intolerant.

          1. If you think the right is tolerant of gay and transgendered persons, people who are other than Christian, minorities, etc. then you and I live in a very different country.

          2. I am not tolerant of racism or fascism. This isn’t about left or right or being “super liberal.” I am married to a libertarian and we are pro second amendment. I have some concerns about transwomen in female only spaces and hormones being given to young teens. I don’t support most of the Dems in office because they are neo-liberal and pro-war. Most of us are not on the extreme but enough voters are more worried about their 401s than about the future of democracy so they keep voting with their wallets instead of their souls.

          3. Anon at 2:53, huh? I said the right is intolerant but they don’t pretend to be otherwise. The left claims to be tolerant but in actuality, they’re often only tolerant of people who share their views (like OP). Both are intolerant but only one is hypocritical about it.

      1. I don’t think you have to be on the “intolerant left,” if that’s really a thing, to be appalled by many things happening in Florida right now – anti-LGBTQ legislation, restrictions on voting that even local election officials oppose, banning classroom discussions on issues that might involve race, etc.

        1. +1 I consider myself a moderate and what is happening in Florida (and to a lesser degree in my own red state) is horrifying.

          1. If we’re talking about the parental rights in education bill, I honestly feel like people must be consciously avoiding reading it, because a lot of it seems like common sense to normal people. By normal, I mean generally moderate human beings who don’t primarily live their lives in ideological echo chambers on the internet. There is a reason it is very popular with Florida voters, including those who identify as liberals.

      2. DeSantis is literally attacking his citizens. One of my best friends is a lifelong Republican Baptist from Kentucky and she is worried about DeSantis. I understand that facism exists because people allow it and THAT is why we are having a national emergency. It is not a conservative stance to stop education about African American history or two be meddling in what books teachers have in their classrooms. Conservatives generally believe in limited government?

        1. You know that education in Black history is actually required by law in Florida schools, right? So DeSantis’ objections to the pilot AP class – whether you agree with them or not – are not stopping Black history from being taught in Florida.

          In terms of “meddling in what books teachers have in their classrooms,” if you send your kids to public school you are by definition agreeing that your state and local government will have ultimate authority over what is taught. Public schools are creations of state government and public school curricula are well within the traditional scope of authority for state governments. If a teacher wants complete freedom in what she teaches, there is a home for that, and it is called private school.

      3. Agree. I have friends in Florida who are pro-LGBT and think that the legislation is great, because they actually drill down to primary sources instead of “MSNBC told me so.” One of my friends routinely posts excerpts from “LGBT-affirming stories” found in public elementary school libraries and it’s nothing short of p0rn. She says we can’t shrink from it on the grounds of decorum – we have to describe exactly what’s in it, which includes BJs, back end, etc.

        1. I have yet to see proof that anything coming close to porn was found in any public school library. It is just not true. And, IF there is a few teachers who are out of line, the answer is not empty classroom shelves. In any event, every child can access actual porn on smartphones unless they are homeschooled and watched by their parents all the time.

          1. yeah, I think it’s funny that parents think their kids first experience with porn is going to be a book in a school library. Umm…have you heard of the internet?

          2. I can definitely think of teachers that I wouldn’t trust with some of these books (one of whom ended up in prison eventually), but a teacher who can’t be trusted with these books can’t be trusted with children either. I have no understanding why parents would sent their children to school if they thought this was the situation.

      4. because most on this board are college educated, and there is a strong correlation with those people voting democrat?

      5. It is not “views” that I am afraid of – that would be DeSantis who is afraid of “woke” views. It is “actions” that I don’t like – actions of censorship, harrassment, and deprivation of healthcare. The last time professors and government officials were harrassed by the government over their views was during the McCarthy era. DeSantis has removed duly elected officials from office because he does not like their views. Think what you want, Alt-right anon, but keep your boot off my neck.

    2. Wow. “The intolerant left.” No. saying a nationally-approved Black Studies AP course has “no educational value” is intolerant. Don’t flip and twist the narrative here. Sorry.

  22. Everything is piling up on me today and I’d like to rant. Had to urgently go to the doctor this morning for a recurring issue, luckily they had a spot open for a half hour after I called. But when I got in my car to go, it wouldn’t start. So I took my SO’s car to the appointment and when I got home, my car still wouldn’t start. Called my dealership and a tow truck, it’ll be here later this afternoon. Cancelled the dermatologist appointment I would have been at when the tow truck gets here. Not like I also have a lot to do today and this week.

    1. Oh man, when it rains it pours! I hope the car repairs aren’t too expensive and you can get rescheduled with your derm soon.

  23. Anyone here regularly play mobile games (other than like crosswords)? I recently got into Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and have been spending a lot of time on it — I find it relaxing to play in the evening before bed, and I also check in when I’m eating lunch at work. My elementary age daughter got me into it and it’s also fun to visit each other’s camps and talk about the game. But I’m kind of vaguely embarrassed about it? I’ve never been able to get into playing video games, even though my husband and daughter are big gamers and am curious if other professional women play these kinds of games too.

    1. I signed up for the NYTimes games subscription and my son and I are really into the spelling bee/vertex/sudoku puzzles. I’ve also liked Smash hit which is great when I’m particularly crabby. Splatoon also looks fun and easy to dip in/out of.

      1. I work the spelling bee every single day and am usually on it at midnight when it drops here on the west coast.

        I also work the mini & compete with a couple of friends on that (I AM UNBEATABLE), and of course the Wordle, which I also do at midnight most nights, and I have a friend text group where we share our green/yellow box grids (I AM EXTREMELY AVERAGE.)

    2. There’s one game I play daily for maybe 10 minutes. I try to not get sucked in and I don’t pay for any prizes/hints. The online newspaper I subscribe to also has a few games like Mahjongg. I’m trying to play a few different games here and there since learning a new game is supposed to be part of keeping your brain healthy. I’m still working so that’s hopefully helping too!

    3. I’m addicted to playing Best Fiends on my phone right now. It’s actually kind of a problem, as I’m very motivated to win the in-game contests, achieve my personal best ranking, and finish levels. I’m an attorney so I try not to play during the workday, but it’s tempting. My new strategy is to try to only play while I’m doing PT exercises, but I’ve had limited success.

      Previously, I played on my phone: Plants vs. Zombies, Ticket to Ride, Catan, and Castles of Mad King Ludwig. I loved all of them, and didn’t stop until I could more or less master them.

      My kids think it’s funny and call me a gamer, but I don’t care.

    4. Oooh I didn’t know they had a phone version now! I think mobile games are good for when you can’t really focus on anything else. Big fan of Stardew, Animal Crossing. Before that the Diner Dash type games. My brother got me some new ones for Xmas.

    5. So, I used to work at a mobile gaming company. We had hundreds of games. Our stickiest customers, who spent the most time, were actually middle aged moms. Of course, depending on the type of game, the demographic will vary, but there are way, way, way more casual mom-gamers than you think! No shame!

      1. Ha! Makes sense. I mean I already take care of people all day, so might as well add a couple of dozen digital animals to that list — at least these ones don’t complain or pee on things like real life children and pets do.

    6. I played a lot of Stardew Valley for the better part of two years, during the pandemic, thanks to a recommendation I saw from someone here. I haven’t found another game I’ve liked as much as that one, but I do periodically dabble in others. For me it’s totally escapism and that’s nothing to apologize for.

  24. I’m a lawyer and was recently hired for a senior leadership in-house role where I am a subject matter expert. My direct manager (essentially the CEO of our business unit) is not a lawyer but up until now previously handled these matters directly with outside counsel. Manager hired me because Manager did not have the bandwidth to manage all the other areas that Manager oversees and also dedicate enough focus to my area. Now that I’ve been working here for a several months, I am realizing that Manager can’t let go of this subject matter. Manager has always enjoyed working on this subject matter and finds it very interesting and engaging. Manager asks to be included in every phone call/meeting with outside counsel that I am perfectly capable of running. Manager also micromanages my communications with our clients. How do I get Manager to back off and let me run things? When I was hired, I was told that they want to hire me because of my deep level of expertise and ability to lead and build out the function, so that Manager would be freed up to focus on other issues. I tend to be a people pleaser and am conflict avoidant, but I have over 15 years of deep experience in this area and need to find a way to wrestle this work away from Manager. Other than the micromanaging, I actually really like Manager and enjoy working together. Any advice or scripts on how to approach this?

    1. Job hunt. Ask me how I know – micromanaging your communications is a huge red flag.

    2. I used to work for a boss who was very personable and a good people leader, but a micromanager who knew my area well. It took me over 8-9 months but I slowly wrestled it away from him (he had 3 other direct reports as well, but their topics/teams were smaller and he knew my area best).
      – A direct conversation during perf cycle, when you say: at my earlier workplace, I led these things myself. I know it takes time to prove oneself at a new role, but I am hoping you can trust me enough to delegate entirely to me in some short period of time. What is your feedback? When do you expect this?
      – My manager’s manager also at one point gave my manager feedback that he is micromanagy. Apparently he had received this type of review in our employee survey so I wasn’t the only one. My manager asked me if I thought he micromanaged and I said (in the nicest way possible) – well, generally you give me good advice on things but yes, I think I can handle a lot of things myself if you delegate to me. So I think he took this to heart and really tried.
      – Depth in subject matter. By design, my boss has less time than I did to focus on this topic, and I had to really immerse myself in it so that I could end up knowing more than him. That way when people asked questions to us in a group meeting, I could be the one having a more up to date and accurate answer. Even when he jumped in and answered, sometimes his info was wrong and I had to add detail to it. It took a while though because my boss worked longer hours than I did, read all his email cover to cover, had skip level 1:1s with my direct reports, and generally put in a lot of effort to knowing almost as much as I did on the topic.

      1. OP here – Thank you!! This is really helpful. I think Manager will be willing to give up the reins if I push. I’m just trying to find an appropriate way to do so. I think I kind of shot myself in the foot a bit at the start because I was very deferential as I tried to get a feel for culture and communication styles, but now I’ve been here long enough that I need to take charge.

    3. I had a boss like that once. Thought he wanted to delegate, but he didn’t really. He just got a kick out of micromanaging. I’m skeptical that addressing it explicitly will do much. The one thing that worked for me is involve him in (and cc him on) everything until he was snowed under and had to start declining invitations and asked me to handle stuff without him. Kind of letting him have the natural consequences. YMMV. Sorry you’re dealing with this, sounds like a bait and switch hire…

  25. Favorite baked chicken recipe to feed 8 people? I usually make chicken Marbella but just made it recently and would love to try something new. Needs to pair well with potato latkes!

    1. Two roast chickens. Google Molly Stevens roast chicken and you will never be disappointed. The key is pre-salting them the day before roasting them.

  26. Low stakes book recs please – looking for recommendations of light reading that is pleasant but without any deaths/r@pe/severe mental illness/etc. No ‘cozy’ mysteries, even Louise Penny is too much right now. I am dealing with some very serious health issues with family and I need some escapist literature. Two of the books I picked up recently (we all want impossible things, Iona Iverson’s Rules for commuting) had much more serious/sad themes than I expected/can handle right now.
    Alternately – any other sandwich generation women have tips for how to manage? I’m trying to fit in workouts/forcing myself to eat balanced meals/etc. but parental health issues on top of work/raising a kid/trying to maintain social ties is rough right now.

    1. I mean, how light? Even the Shopaholic series touches on some issues. But the Shopaholic series is quite diverting (ymmv)

    2. This is why I love to read fluffy romance sometimes! I particularly enjoyed The Charm Offensive recently.

    3. I reach for The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery when I need something like this. In fact, I did a whole reread of Anne, Emily, Jane of Lantern Hill this summer. Would that be good?

      1. I LOVED The Blue Castle. My copy is falling apart. I prefer Emily to Anne (blasphemy, I know).

      2. I was going to suggest this, but there is secondary character death (main character is in a caretaking role) so I wasn’t sure if that might hit too close to home. I wouldn’t consider it distressing under normal circumstances, but fair warning, OP! I definitely concur on some LMM in general though.

        1. You’re quite right! I forgot about that (doh; major plot point). Maybe not right for Anne-on right now if eldercare is what’s stressing her out.

    4. just picked up Lattes and Legends about an orc who retires to open a coffee shop, if cozy fantasy escapism appeals to you!

    5. I made a thread with a similar request recently, let me see if I can find it. I don’t like romance so that rules out a large majority of the books that meet this description. If you’re open to romance, that’s the obvious answer.

      Looking at my 2022 books, I think these books that I enjoyed would qualify (all are happy-ish endings with no violence or serious mental illness…some have infidelity/divorce, but that’s about the only “dark” theme I think): Marrying the Ketchups by Jennifer Close, Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson, Modern Lovers and The Vacationers by Emma Straub, Rock the Boat by Beck Dorey-Stein [this one involves a guy coping with the loss of his dad so might not be right for you now, even though the death happens before the book begins], The Latcomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz, The Smash-Up by Ali Benjamin, One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London [this is romance-adjacent, but I enjoyed it].

      Sorry about the health situation <3

      1. Spoiler: The Latecomer does feature death, but it’s pretty off-screen (so to speak).

        1. That’s true, but it’s offscreen and not a main character. And not really a spoiler either, since it happens at the beginning.

    6. What you need are regency romances! There can be a wide variety of topics covered in these books so here are my pure fluff recs:

      A Week to Be Wicked by Tessa Dare
      The Last Hellion by Loretta Chase (or Viscount Vagabond)
      Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacClean
      Lady Louisa’s Christmas Knight by Grace Burrowes

    7. Paging Casey McQuiston — I loved Red, White, and Royal Blue and also One Last Stop. Fun fun fun gay-themed romance novels. I also enjoyed Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper (that’s the title) by Hilary Lifton, which is a fictionalized version of the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes marriage and divorce but told in a fairly lighthearted way. Counterfeit by Kristen Chen is a fun story about a counterfeit luxury handbag ring. Oh, and Ruth Reichl’s Garlic and Sapphires is great, as is her Save Me the Plums.

      1. Dangit all my posts are in mod today. Check back for a longish list of recommendations and I’m so sorry about your family troubles!

    8. Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados! So glamorous and smart and fun. Every sentence is like biting into a piece of fruit.

      Description from GoodReads: “In her diary, Isa describes a sweltering summer in the glittering city. By day, the girls sell clothes in a market stall, pinching pennies for their Bed-Stuy sublet and bodega lunches. By night, they weave from Brooklyn to the Upper East Side to the Hamptons among a rotating cast of celebrities, artists, Internet entrepreneurs, stuffy intellectuals, and bad-mannered grifters. Money runs ever tighter and the strain tests their friendship as they try to convert their social capital into something more lasting than their precarious gigs as au pairs, nightclub hostesses, paid audience members, and aspiring foot fetish models. Through it all, Isa’s bold, beguiling voice captures the precise thrill of cultivating a life of glamour and intrigue as she juggles paying her dues with skipping out on the bill.”

  27. Y’all, it hasn’t been an easy month but I’m proud of myself and wanted to share! I completed the Yoga with Adriene 30 day yoga journey, stuck to my no buy rules (no clothes, makeup, or skincare), stayed off Instagram, and started working with a new therapist. DH and I also doubled our monthly savings towards a down payment, woohoo. Taking a moment to recognize the wins before we head into February – would love to hear yours too!

    1. Nice! Congrats.

      I’m not sure I have any wins yet. I’m in my busy season and working long hours. Maybe sometime in late February I will look back and be impressed with myself but for now, it’s a slog.

    2. Wowzers! Go, you!!

      My win is I threw a seriously great dinner party for 16 people (2 of whom RSVP’d the day before — SMH) last Saturday to celebrate my husband’s retirement, which is officially TODAY because his office lease is expiring (although he’ll be working on his remaining cases from home). He was just going to let it go by without any fanfare but we ended up having a lovely catered dinner at our house for 16 people including his office staff, his soon-to-be-former partner, and a couple of former colleagues and their spouses. Everybody got nicely sentimental and made nice speeches and shared their memories, and I feel like it was an important occasion, well marked.

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